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Petr Torák MBE (born 8 March 1981) is a police officer in the UK who grew up in the Czech Republic and comes from a Roma background. His police work is centred on Czech and Slovak Roma people, the issues they face, and wider questions arising from their migration to England. In 2015, Torák was awarded an MBE for "services to the Roma community".
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Background
Torák was born in Liberec in the Czech Republic and studied at the Law Academy there. In 1999 he and his parents sought asylum in the UK, after suffering violent attacks with political and racist motives. Initially, Torák worked as a volunteer in a solicitor's office in Southend-on-Sea. After gaining a work permit he was employed in fast food, factories and supermarkets before joining Cambridgeshire Police in 2006 as a Community Support Officer working in Millfield, Peterborough. In 2008 he became a fully-fledged police officer.
Police work
He works in Peterborough, a city with many recent east European immigrants, and his language skills (Czech, Polish, Slovak, Portuguese, English and some Russian) and cultural understanding have been commented on favourably. He is a project co-ordinator in a local organisation, COMPAS, which tries to promote community cohesion and is also a trained mediator for ROMED, an EU project which trains mediators to help Roma communities communicate with local authorities.
Torák has been called on to consult with groups concerned about "modern slavery" and similar issues affecting migrants from Eastern Europe, like young women forced into sex work, and workers exploited by gangmasters. He has also been invited to participate in a meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) about Roma and Sinti "interactions with law enforcement agencies". Answering questions, he said he was "initially regarded as a "Roma police officer", but ... now works with all members of the community, an example of how the Roma community can play a role in mainstream society."
Torák is actively involved with the Gypsy Roma Traveller Police Association (GRTPA) which offers a network of support for Traveller and Romany police officers who often hide their ancestry for fear of prejudice, and is currently the executive director of the association. Torak has encouraged Roma people in the UK to consider policing as a possible career choice.
In 2015 he was given an honorary MBE (an MBE for non-Commonwealth citizens) for "services to the Roma community".